How to boost your odds of winning $150m Powerball

One lucky Aussie could be crowned the country’s biggest ever lottery winner if they win tonight’s $150 million Powerball. See SA’s luckiest suburbs to buy a ticket.

Some seek out winning lotto agencies, others avoid them believing luck won’t strike the same place twice.

Whatever your strategy, “you’ve got to be in it for the chance to win it”, The Lott’s Anna Hobdell said ahead of Thursday’s $150 million Powerball draw.

Kylie Brown Newsagency owner Kylie Brown is hoping she can get a third division one win in the Powerball megadraw, having previously sold two other top prize winning tickets: $10.6m Powerball and $450,000 Keno.

Kylie Brown in her Glenelg newsagency with Powerball syndicate entries. The jackpot this week is $150 million. Picture: Brenton Edwards

She said a third win would be the icing on the cake, explaining that punters had been lining up since Friday to get a ticket in Thursday’s $150m Powerball draw.

“They always come in three, don’t they,” she said.

She said customers were opting for syndicates because “$150m is too much” but there were others opting for a mix of group, lucky numbers and QuickPicks.

“Everyone is hoping for a share because they say $150m is too much,” she said.

“So the majority are doing syndicates but there are some people doing a bit of both.”

The jackpot – the third biggest prize in Australian lotto history – was reached after there were no division one winners in last week’s $100m draw.

If one lucky Australian wins, they will become the country’s biggest ever lottery winner.

Ms Hobdell said those who played lotto adopted different methods in their bid for success.

“Some players tell us they deliberately pick outlets that have recently sold a major lottery prize in the hope of continuing the winning streak, while other players choose different outlets, believing lightning won’t strike twice,” she said.

More than half of last year’s Powerball division one wins were PowerHit entries – tickets which guarantee the all-important Powerball.

And while you may opt to try your own lucky set of numbers, Ms Hobdell said more than half of last year’s division one winning tickets were from QuickPick entries – where the lottery terminal picks the numbers for you.

So far this year, six Powerball division one winning entries have pocketed more than $270 million. Three of those were in Queensland and the other three were from NSW.

To win division one, players need to match all seven winning numbers plus the Powerball number in a single game, but people can win a prize with as little as two winning numbers plus the Powerball.

Last year, there were 500 division one winning entities across all lotto games in the country, worth a combined $1.52 billion in prize money, data from The Lott and Lotterywest revealed.

New South Wales was the state with the most division one wins (131) and most division one prize money awarded at more than $575 million. One of those winners was a Bankstown dad who won the second-biggest individual lotto in Australia’s history, pocketing $100 million from a Powerball prize in June last year. They bought their ticket online.

The next biggest winning entry went to someone in Victoria, who pocketed $60m after winning with a ticket bought online.

While many of the major windfalls in each state have been from tickets sold online, many customers are still turning to their nearest lottery outlet.

In Queensland, the biggest division one winning ticket sold in store was at newsXpress Kin Kora in Gladstone, which won $15m last year. In NSW, the Rosebery North Newsagency in Roseberry sold a $50m winning ticket, Victoria’s Cairnlea News and Lotto, in Cairnlea, sold a $20m ticket, and Kylie Brown’s Newsagency in Glenelg, SA, sold a $10.6m winning ticket last year.

HOW TO BOOST YOUR LOTTO ODDS

About half of Australia’s adults are expected to have an entry into Thursday’s $150m Powerball draw.

When the Powerball jackpotted to $150m earlier this year, the peak of ticket sales was at 6.15pm on the day before the draw when 7455 tickets were sold in a single minute.

See how you can boost your chances of taking home the main prize.

TICKETS

More than half of the Powerball division one winning entries last year were “QuickPicks”, which is where the lottery ticket machine randomly generates your numbers.

Eleven of the winning tickets were PowerHit entries, which is unique to Powerball and guarantees the all-important Powerball numbers you need to win.

The Bankstown father who won the $100m last year, did so with a six-game QuickPick for $8.10.

LUCKY NUMBERS

The most frequently drawn winning numbers from the main barrel are 17, 7, 3 and 9, while the least frequently drawn are 33, 15, 31 and 26.

The most frequently drawn Powerball numbers are 2 and 4, while the least frequently drawn Powerball numbers are 14 and 16.